OIVANGEMAN, one of the unhappy party designations which contributed for nearly a century to create and keep alive religious and political divisions of the worst character throughout the British empire, but especially in Ireland. The Orange organization bad its i origin in the animosities which had subsisted between Protestants and Catholicsin Ireland from the reformation downwards, but which reached their full development after the revo lution of 1088, and the wholesale confiscations of Catholic property by which that event was followed. From that time, the Catholics of Ireland may be said legally to have lest all political, and religious status in Ireland. Some attempts which were made in the latter part of the 18th c. to ameliorate their condition, excited, especially in the n., the alarm of the Protestant party, who regarded the traditionary "Protestant ascend. ency" as endangered. Acts of violence became of frequent occurrence, and, as com monly happens, combinations for aggressive and defensive purposes were formed, not alone by the Protestants, but also by their Catholic antagonists. The members of the Protestant associations appear at first to have been known by the name of "Peep-of-day Boys," from the time at which their violences were commonly perpetrated; the Catholics who associated together for self-defense being called "Defenders." collisions between armed bodies of these parties became of frequent occurrence. In 1785 a pitched battle, attended with much bloodshed, was fought in the county of Armagh. The steps taken to repress these disorders were at once insufficient in themselves to prevent open violence, and had the effect of diverting the current into the still more dangerous channel of secret associations. The rude and illiterate snob of Peep-of-day boys made way for the rich and influential organization of the Orange society, which, having its first origin in the same obscure district which had so long been the scene of agrarian violence, by degrees extended its ramifications into every portion of the British empire, and into every grade of society from the liovel to the very steps of the throne. The name of the Orange association is taken from that of the prince of Orange, William III., and was assumed in honor of that prince, who, in Ireland, has been popularly identified with the establishment of that Protestant ascendency which it was the object of time Orange associa tion to sustain. The first" Orange lodge" was founded in the village of Leughgall, county Armagh, Sept. 21, 1795. The immediate occasion of the crisis was a series of outrages by which Catholics were forcibly ejected from their houses and farms, 12 or 14 houses being' sometimes, according to a disinterested witness, wrecked in a single night; termi nating, Sept., 1795, in an engagement, called from the place where it occurred, the Battle of the Diamond. •The association which began among the ignorant peasantry soon worked its way upwards. ' The general disaffection towards English rule, which at that time pervaded Ireland, and in which the Catholics, as a natural consequence of their oppressed condition, largely participated, tended much to identify in the minds of Protestants the cause of disloyalty with that of popery; and the rebellion of 1798 insep arably combined the religious with the political antipathies. In November of that year, the Orange society had already reached the dignity of a grand lodge of Ireland, with a grand master, a grand secretary, and a formal establishment in the metropolis; and in the following years, the organization extended over the entire province of Ulster. and had its ramifications in all the centers of Protestantism in the other provinces of Ireland. In 1808 it extended to England. A grand lodge was founded at Manchester, from which warrants were issued for the entire kingdom. The seat of the grand lodge was trans ferred to London in 1821. The subject more than once was brought under the notice of parliament, in 1813; and, iu consequence, the grand lodge of Ireland was dis solved; but its functions in issuing warrants, etc., were discharged vicariously through the English lodge. The most memorable crisis, however, iu the history of the Orange society was the election of a royal duke (Cumberland) in 1827 as grand master for England; and on the re-establishment of the Irish grand lodge in 1828, as imperial grand master. Time Catholic relief act of the following year stirred up all the slumbering antipathies of creed and race, and the Orange association was propagated snore vigor ously than ever. Emissaries were sent out for the purpose of organizing lodges, not
alone in Wales and Scotland, but also in Canada, in the Mediterranean, and in the other colonies. But the most formidable part of this zealous propagandism was its introduc tion into the army. As early as 1824 traces of this are discoverable, and again in 1826._ No fewer than 32 regiments were proved to have received warrants for holding lodges in Ireland, and the English grand lodge had issued 37 warrants for the same purpose. • The organization of this strange association was most complete and most extensive. Subject to the central grand lodge were three classes—county, district, and private lodges—each of which corresponded and made returns and contributions to its own immediate superior, by whom they were transmitted to the grand lodge. Each lodge had a master, deputy-master, secretary, committee, and chaplain. The only condition of membership was that the party should he Protestant, and 18 years of age. The elec tion of members was by ballot, and each lodge also annually elected its own officers and committee. The general government of the association was vested in the grand lodge, which consisted' of all the great dignitaries, the grand masters of counties, and the mem bers of another body called the grand committee. This lodge met twice each year, in May and on Nov. 5—the day pregnant with associations calculated to keep alive the Protestant antipathies of the body. All the dignitaries of the society as well as its vari ous committees and executive bodies, were subject to annual re-election. In 1835 the association numbered 20 grand lodges, 80 district lodges, 1500 private lodges, rind from 200,000 to 220,000 members. The worst result of the Orange association was the constant incentive it supplied to party animosities and deeds of violence. The spirit of fraternity which pervaded its members was a standing obstacle to the administration of the law; and all confidence in the local administration of justice by magistrates was destroyed. An alleged Orange conspiracy to alter the succession to the crown in favor of the duke of Cumberland led to a protracted parliamentary inquiry in 1635; and this inquiry as well as irshocking outrage perpetrated soon afterwards by an armed body of Orangemen, on occasion of a procession in Ireland, so discredited the association and awakened the pub lic mind to a sense of its folly and wickedness, that its respectability has since that time gradually diminished. For several years the lord chancellor laid down a rule, by which no member of the Orange association was admitted to the commission of the peace; and the association became comparatively without influence, except among the very lowest classes in the north of Ireland. Of the colonial offshoots of the Orange association those of Canada have at all times been the most active, carrying with them all the bitterness of the domestic fend with the Roman Catholics. Outrages against Catholic churches and convents were of not unfrequent occurrence until recently; • and on occasion of the visit of the prince of Wales to Canada, an attempt was made to force from his royal highness a recognition of the association, which was only defeated by his own thinness, and by the judicious and moderate counsels of his advisers. A few years ago the Orangemen of British America constituted above 1200 lodges, with about 150,000 members. The association has branches in the United States also.
The Orange association in Ireland, which bad bean to fall into disrepute, received an impulse among the working classes from a series of sanguinary with Roman Catholics on occasion of the anniversary celebrations of the society; and even still the peace of many districts in the north of Ireland is only reserved on such occa sions by the presence of an overpowering force of military and constabulary. The repeal of the processions act has failed up to the present, time to put an end to the tradi tional collisions of the parties.
ORit'NIENBAUM, a Russian t. on the gulf of Finland, 20 m. w. of St. Petersburg; pop. 4,013. It his a marine hospital and an imperial palace built by prince Menshikoff, and afterwards the favorite residence of Peter III. The palace is surrounded on all sides by orange trees (oranienbilame), whence it derives its name.